


The further you fall, the harder you land

by TheFierceBeast



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Castiel is a complete masochist, Castiel is in chains again, Crowley Being an Asshole, Deflowering, First Time, Graphic mentions of torture, M/M, Post-Purgatory, Stripping, crowstiel, cuddle torture, look at their fucking love connection, sort of dub con but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 13:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5092064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFierceBeast/pseuds/TheFierceBeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Castiel tries to atone for his deeds by taking on Sam’s memories of Lucifer’s cage and becoming insane in the process and is transported to Purgatory along with Dean when Dean kills the Leviathan possessing Dick Roman, instead of him electively staying on in Purgatory after helping Dean and Benny to escape, he is transported back to earth with Dean and Benny. As he’s not been in Purgatory long enough to either fully regain his sanity or complete his self-imposed penance for his sins, he’s still in a much weakened and desperate state and looking for atonement – so he turns to Crowley, the expert at punishment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing Crowley says when he arrives to the summons is "I thought you were..."  


"Dead?" Castiel finishes for him.  
Crowley narrows his eyes. "In Purgatory."  
"I was."  
He looks like he was, too. He looks wrung out, tattered, filthy, crouching at the crossroads over the little buried pile of his summoning ritual. He certainly seems less cuckoo than last time they met, but he's clearly still not right: for a mighty warrior of The Lord he sure does spend a lot of time crawling in the dirt.  
He pats that self-same dirt down now, with the palms of his hands, before brushing them off on his coat and looking up at Crowley. Bleary. His eyes bloodshot and heavy-lidded. Crowley taps his foot, impatiently and Castiel says, "Do you still wish to crush me between your teeth?"  
There's something awry alright, and it takes Crowley just a beat to realise that it's not merely helpless, cooing insanity. "Are you _drunk_?"  
"Yes."  
"Look at the state of you.” Crowley shakes his head in disbelief. “What the hell have you been chugging, meths?"  
"I believe it was a sports bar."  
His voice sounds like he's been eating hardcore washed down with lava chasers. There's nothing else Crowley can think of to say but, "Why?"  
Castiel rocks back on his heels, then nearly overbalances and puts his hands out sharply to save himself from sprawling backwards. It should be piss-funny, but somehow Crowley isn't laughing. Castiel raises his eyebrows and says, wearily, "Purgatory was a hard time."  
"So now you're celebrating your escape from the Big House?"  
A little frown. "I'm not celebrating, I'm..." The line between his eyebrows deepens. "I shouldn't be here. I don't _deserve_ to be here. I deserve to be back in Purgatory."  
His face is a perfect crumpled picture of inebriated anguish. Crowley sighs. "Well, that's just peachy, Saint Self-Flagellation - you're sad because you miraculously escaped hideous mortal torment, so now you're trying to drink away those pesky freedom blues. Quite understandable." He raises an eyebrow. "But that has exactly _what_ to do with yours truly?"  
"Take me to Hell."  
"What?" It's Crowley's turn to frown then, his voice a confused grunt.  
And Castiel says, "Take me. I'm yours. I'm throwing myself upon your mercy."  
  
Naturally, Crowley snaps them to his domain first and asks questions later - it's not every day a freebie like this just lands in a fella's lap. His magic gets his guest past border security and straight into a warded cell but sure enough, Castiel is still in a bad way and Crowley needn't brace himself quite so hard for the ‘surprise’ attack he's quite sure is about to come, despite how the spells woven into the walls neutralise angelic powers. It seems, bizarrely, that the angel is being utterly sincere.  
He’s stuck in the room, but there’s no holy fire to contain him, no spell to bind his hands, but despite it, Castiel stays where he lands, sitting in the middle of the stone floor with his knees drawn up and head bowed. Defeated but defiant, broken but proud, retaining that desperate dignity, that dangerous power, even in the depths of despair: he's a wonderful mess. Crowley can't quite believe his luck. “So this is a fallen angel.” Or - perhaps not so, if he's still this righteously desperate to atone for his sins, for mistakes he made largely under Crowley's own guidance. Crowley remembers it all too well. Misses it, truth be told; they'd made a surprisingly effective team until the angel had betrayed him so spectacularly in the name of 'goodness'. Crowley can't abide a welsher: now look where it's landed the fool; purposefully driving himself to ruin, seeking the one worst thing he can think of - to throw himself on the mercy of his greatest enemy.  Castiel's eyes are bright with despair. His lips are - a memory assails Crowley then; _'a kiss is unnecessary. I have no soul to bargain with', 'It's tradition, love. It's the rules', 'No.'_ the recollected rejection makes Crowley grit his teeth, his pulse jumping at the prospect, finally, of revenge.   
Now the angel turns haunted eyes upon him and says, "Do what you will. Torture me. Kill me. Ruin me. Just punish me for what I have become. I need you to... take me apart."  
Crowley clears his throat, voice suddenly hoarse. "And remake you?"  
"No. Take as much time as you want. Just - destroy whatever remains."  
And Crowley wonders just how far he will willingly fall. "You must be insane, angel. Playing me like you did, then coming to me with this – _this_ -” Crowley shakes his head. He’s starting to see red at the edges of his vision, the true lust for pain that was drilled into him century upon century in Hell. “Have you any _idea_ what I can do to you? Have you any _notion_ of _true suffering_?” He paces, measured, shoes clicking upon the stone flags, his vessel rushing hot and cold thrills, his voice smooth and reasonable. “I will vivisect you layer by bloody layer and leave your lungs till last so I can savour your every shriek of mindless agony whilst I peel the meat from your bones as you beg me to let you die." Bundled up on the floor, Castiel raises his head. His face is a picture of calm acceptance. “I will slice off every part of you that sticks out and then I will force them into every bit of you that sticks in,” Crowley says, but his tone is becoming more agitated. “I will break every damn inch of every bone in your body and rearrange you into jaunty balloon animal shapes and when there is nothing left but a seeping bruised sack of shattered fragments being _poisoned by its own leaking marrow_ I will _scald your Grace with Hellfire_ until it is blazing black for me, I will _glut myself on your flesh_ , so help me, _I will open my mouth wide and I will **eat your still-beating heart**_...” He realises he’s shouting, yelps to a breathless, flustered halt. The angel is still gazing steadily up at him and his pale lips are flushed with blood. He doesn't look afraid. He looks - he looks _hopeful_ , damn him. Crowley shakes his head in mildly sickened bemusement. This is like shooting fish in a bloody barrel. "Don't think you're getting off easily" he mutters, and turns on his heel. A parting gesture of dismissal with one hand, and chains fling up from the floor, wrapping around and dragging the angel’s arms along with their ascent to the ceiling, leaving him hanging there, bound.  
_Getting off. Easily._ He'll have to have a long, hard think about this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never let it be said that Crowley doesn't think up the most fiendish punishments...

It's hard not to slice him to ribbons when he suffers so prettily, like he was made for it. Crowley's fingers itch for it, but he restrains himself. He restrains himself for a long, long time. It's too much like giving the feathered punch-bag what he wants: no fun when it’s offered up on a plate without so much as a fair fight. No. Now, Crowley walks a slow circle around him, hands clasped behind his back, pondering. He’s had the Angel Castiel strung up in his private dungeon for nearly eight months now without so much as laying a finger on him and he’s no closer to deciding what to do with him. Of course, the discomfort of bondage and the mindless boredom and anxiety of constant threat are really punishment in themselves. Not to mention the fact that, whilst he won’t die from it, his vessel, with heavenly power curbed by Crowley’s magic, must be starving. Crowley pauses in front of him, studies the blank misery on his face. He doesn’t really look any thinner, but he’s sprouted an impressive beard and his hair has grown like weeds, almost to his shoulders: it’s positively _Biblical_. Grinning, Crowley knows: Castiel wants the catharsis of tearing flesh, of limbs popped from their sockets and blinded eyes turned inwards; the soothing, white noise oblivion of pain so intense that it numbs. First bound, he bit his own lips until they bled; but of course he couldn’t carry on with that, couldn’t compound his sins with wilful self-harm when all he craves is the wrathful hand of his enemy. No, Crowley must bide his time and work out precisely how he can make best use of this arrangement, what is in it for him, before he makes any rash decisions. Whatever route he takes with this one, he wants to really _savour_ it. After all, what is torment in Hell mainly about? Time. All the time in the world. The angel will just have to await his fate like the rest of the penitents. He turns to stalk once again out of the cell, then halts as Castiel speaks for the first time in months, in a voice like grating metal. "Why won't you just destroy me?"  
Crowley turns to look back over his shoulder. "Harm _you_? Oh, heaven forfend, darling! You're my favourite toy. My glittering prize. The jewel in the crown of Hell. You're my _aaaaangel_..." He sings the last bit, certain that his prisoner must recognise the tune from Squirrel's questionable cock-rock collection. Sure enough, there's the pained squeezing shut of eyes, against the horror. Crowley chuckles, softly.  
Castiel, eyes still closed, says "Crowley, I came to you. We had a deal."  
"A deal? Oh, nononono - firstly, we had no deal that was formally sealed." His gaze alights on Castiel's bitten lips. "I think I'd remember quite clearly were it so. And secondly, you came to me begging - _begging_ , budgie - for penance. When you look up penance in the dictionary you do realise the definition isn't 'to get exactly what you want' right? You do understand that the concept of punishment is suffering, not whatever kinky righteous catharsis you apparently had in mind? Hmm.” A sudden thought strikes him. An inspiration. And Crowley turns on the balls of his feet and strides back over to where Castiel hangs in chains. To his credit, Castiel doesn’t flinch when Crowley raises a hand to his face. But when that hand strokes gently, experimentally, down his cheek, his eyes darken. "I think you're a bit too much like those types we get in Hell - remember, angel? ‘Thank you sir, poke me harder, sir, I deserve it.’ You know what? Call me crazy, but I have an idea.” When the chains evaporate into smoke, Castiel falls heavily, his limbs useless from months of restraint, and Crowley catches him, slumped in his arms. He doesn’t lay him down. He holds him close. He rests a cheek against the top of his head, lips moving in his shaggy hair, murmuring comfort, “I’m sorry. I’ve treated you very badly. That’s all going to stop now.”  
“Crowley. What are you doing?” Castiel’s rough voice holds a gratifying hint of panic.  
Crowley smiles against his curls. “The right thing. I’m going to take care of you.”

Even for him, Crowley knows it’s childish, but it’s so bloody funny that he catches himself chuckling at random moments whilst he’s carrying out day to day business. Even his minions have noticed how upbeat their ruler is these days, since he got his new pet. He’s been handing out favours left, right and centre and tormenting with a real spring in his step, and it turns out he didn’t need to spill a single drop of holy blood to do it.   
The angel is still incarcerated, of course, but now his cell is a suite of rooms adjacent to Crowley’s own chambers, kitted out with all the literature, soft furnishings and comforts that any prisoner could hope for. There’s good coffee, and cable, and even a garden – although Crowley has to concede to his limits on that one, but it’s better than nothing; it has a bench, and a little pond. And sometimes the angel gives in and reads, or takes a walk around his private yard in the ever-present twilight of Hell, but most of the time he just sits, catatonic, on the edge of his bed, staring at his own hands. Crowley knows this, because he visits him every evening - sometimes more than once a day, if his schedule allows – and he makes charming conversation. Charming one sided conversation, more often than not.   
“Hard day at the office. Some bright spark in Idaho’s practically walled herself up in goofer dust, the pups couldn’t get near. Going to have to send in one of my generals to fetch her, I swear – some folk, eh? No idea how she managed it, she must have dug up a whole sodding graveyard.” Crowley smiles, warmly, at Castiel’s blank, unblinking stare. “It’s good to have a cheerful face to come home to of an evening. Did you get up to anything nice, today, love?”  
Predictably, there is no reply. The bed dips a little as Crowley sits down next to him and, flashing him another indulgent smile, wraps an arm around his waist. Smooths the unruly hair back from his forehead. “You know, you can’t win. You can’t out-wait me; we’re both damn nigh immortal, you soft pillock. May as well give in and watch some box-sets, come on – how hard can that be? Fancy cuddling up and watching some Will and Grace with me?” Crowley waggles his eyebrows. Castiel remains stony-faced. Crowley chuckles. “Unless you'd prefer to wait in line for a few millennia and have a good hard think about what you've done, of course?"  
Castiel’s eyes swivel towards him. Still bright. So bright. "I'll wait in line."  
A sigh. "Yes. Of course you will. That'd be preferable, wouldn't it, treasure?" He caresses Castiel’s cheek, gently. It’s a softness that’s become strangely habitual; fitting-feeling, and he’s sure he doesn’t imagine Castiel leaning into the touch.  
"Please. Stop."  
"That's what they all say." Crowley presses a tender kiss to the top of Castiel’s head and feels him shake with what might be a sob.  
  
It really was inspired. At first. The worst punishment Crowley could think of was to treat him with kindness and oh boy, did it work a treat - he's anguished – but now the tender touch is starting to feel like a punishment for both of them. Crowley is – he can barely condone the thought – starting to _enjoy_ it.   
At first he hated Castiel on sight. Before their partnership changed everything. Now, he can’t even imagine laying a hand on him in violence, breaking that creamy pale skin. Whilst Castiel is mighty, a warrior, he is also still strangely like a child, full of undeveloped ego, fascinated with anything he shouldn't be, forever playing with matches. It’s this contradiction that fascinates Crowley, makes him want to keep the beast around, strictly for shits and giggles you understand. But it’s turning into something more dangerous. The sweetness needs to stop. Crowley needs to think of a new angle to the game. And that’s why he cancels his late appointments and puts his phone on silent and summons the angel to his chambers with a click of his fingers.   
He knows precisely how he looks; it's why he's so attached to this vessel. No other suits him so well. The lesser demons can keep their buffed-up gym-bunny exteriors - he shifts on the bed, flexing luxuriously - none of them can match him. He knows he's imposing; you don't need youth or height or any of that petty rubbish for that. You need confidence. His lip curls, a slanted smirk. He exudes it. Even as now, lying comfortably naked on his throne of pillows, with his broad shoulders and thick waist and... He chuckles, running an idle hand over his considerable _talent_... Yeah, he knows how he looks. He sees it reflected clear as stars in the angel's darkening eyes.  
"Hello, Castiel."


	3. Chapter 3

"What is this?"  
"Aw." Crowley sticks out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout. "No 'good evening Crowley'? No? Straight into business? Suit yourself." He shifts on the bed, flinging his arms out, spreading his legs a little, and there it is: the angel's gaze is magnetised. Crowley tilts his head, appraising him, that same little smirk playing about his lips. Noting how Castiel’s eyes widen in – curiosity? Apprehension? _Desire_?

He’s wearing what Crowley’s minions dressed him in; plain black trousers, no belt, and shirt open at the throat. His feet are bare, his outgrown hair curling thick over his collar, the stubble dark at his jaw. He looks… odd. Crowley considers him briefly, then clicks his fingers. Better. The old familiar Cas, blinking dazedly down at his uniform of suit and tie and trench-coat, although Crowley’s kept the hair; something about those Caravaggio curls makes him look rather more… angelic.

“Take it off. I want to watch you. And save your blushes, sweetheart, this isn’t meant to make you comfortable.”  
He wants to sound hard, pitiless, but he can't quite keep the kindling lust out of his voice. It’s been so long. He’s had him in such close proximity for _so long_. Castiel hesitates. His hands flutter, uncertain before him. "Now!" Crowley barks and Castiel flinches and frowns. His hands move to his tie. He unknots it. Slowly. Crowley watches him like a wolf. He'd like to imagine this stimulating hesitation is reticence or shyness, but he knows it's really just perplexion, or that delightful stubbornness: naive and prim he may be, but the angel isn't shy. That handsome vessel is just function over form to him and shedding his clothes doesn't cause him any embarrassment. Well - Crowley will just have to try harder. Buttons popped, one by one. Long fingers dragging belt through buckle. He doesn't even hesitate further at his underwear - presumably Crowley's state of undress tells him that's not up for discussion - stepping neatly out of his white shorts and discarding them on top of his piled garments. Hands by his sides. Awaiting further instruction. Crowley licks his lips. Oh, but he is lovely. Crowley was human once, and he still appreciates the human form above all. This one is slender and well-proportioned as a Greek marble, slim hips and flat belly, lightly muscled, skin as smooth as Crowley's is dusted with hair. Masculine, yet beautiful. But perhaps that is the radiating essence of the utterly alien power inhabiting it; the real reason Crowley can't damn well quit this gorgeous liability now standing displayed at his command.  
“Nice. Now – put the coat back on.” His attire has offended Crowley for so long that he’ll admit he’s become perversely fascinated by it. The symbolism of it, as it were. Castiel looks beautifully confused, but he complies, crouching demurely to dig his coat out from beneath shirt and trousers and underwear. “Good boy. Ah, ah-” he wags a finger, and Castiel, in the process of gathering the coat around him, dutifully bites his lip and lets it fall open again. Crowley smiles. It’s a pleasing view. The angel’s cock hangs heavy and half-hard between his thighs, for all the world as if he’s enjoying this. Well – so be it. Crowley says, voice dangerously low, “Come here and ride me.”  
Uncertainty, then. Eyes widening. Hard-on perking up a little more: it’s that which makes Crowley suppress a proprietorial growl. “I said. Come here. And ride me. Do you need me to draw a diagram? That is an order.”

Castiel takes a hesitant step forward. The skirts of his coat swaying around his thighs. Bright-dark conflict in his eyes. Here, in Crowley’s chambers, right now, there is no warding. Maybe he’s so prison-minded now that it’s escaped his notice that he could fly at any time. Maybe he really is so determined to serve his time that he’ll bow to Crowley’s every whim through choice. Maybe.

He places a knee on the end of the bed, draws the other one up, kneeling. Crawls up the smooth sheets until he’s straddling Crowley’s ankles. One hand brushes, lightly as an accident, across the inside of Crowley’s right knee. Thumb lingering. Crowley shivers. Castiel crawls further up the bed; further up Crowley’s body, his full mouth pressed into an unreadable line. When he’s level with his thighs, he sits up, shaking his coat tails out behind him in a gesture that seems absurdly theatrical for what’s happening, actually happening. _Innocent, lethal creature_. Crowley catches hold of one of his wrists, presses his thumb against the hammering pulse there. Pulls him closer.   
It has to hurt: Crowley wouldn't have stuck with this vessel if it had been under-endowed, but Castiel manages beautifully, seems almost practiced as he grits his teeth and sheaths Crowley to the hilt in his awkward virginal body, and oh how sweetly that vessel yields. He gives himself up so enthusiastically to his debasement, one would almost feel he welcomes it for more than penance. Castiel clenches his fists, crosses them behind his head. As he starts to move, muscles shuddering in his thighs, his belly, the effort shows on his face, in his laboured breathing and half lidded eyes, the sweat beading on his upper lip - Crowley wants to lick it away and he does not want to do that as punishment, no, does not want to press his mouth against that flushed chest to punish; he just _wants_. A barbed poker up the jacksy would hurt more, sure. But this is a wound to the pride, isn't it? _Isn't it_? Castiel is hard too, now, fully hard, his cock curving up between them, bobbing as he rolls his hips. A little soft moan escapes him and Crowley feels so many stabs at once - arousal, concern, triumph - and curses both Cas and himself thrice for each. When did revenge become - _what_? This? _Infatuation_? Certainly nothing bloody well more than that, no, nothing more – not affection, not a bit.  And he'd have thought, hoped, that Castiel wouldn't be able to look him in the eye now, but he does and more than that - his hot blue gaze is steadier than ever, defrosting the packed black ice of Crowley’s heart.

"You asked for this." Crowley sounds almost wounded. Accusing.  
"I didn’t ask for… this," Castiel answers, but the words hold a little less gravitas when they’re broken in two by a breathless gasp of pleasure.  
"You _begged_ for this!" Crowley repeats, "You wanted to be punished, I’m obliging – not that I make a habit of obliging anyone but – I punish. It’s what I do." He sounds dangerously close to desperate, and it’s not all he’s dangerously close to. He rolls his hips, canting them upwards, palms hot against Castiel's sleek thighs, a vibrating groan bitten back into his throat.

Rocking above him, the angel leans back, the shimmer of mortal perspiration on his skin replacing the glow of grace. Everything about him is taut – the hard muscles in his thighs, the tendons standing out in his elegant neck – everything except his soft mouth, slack around a stream of low incoherent murmurs of agonised pleasure as he fucks himself raw on his jailer’s cock. “If this is punishment…” the strain sounds clearly in his voice, as if he can barely manage the words, “then should I enjoy it so much?"  
Crowley makes an upset noise and, grinding his teeth, shoots his load. Above him, the angel gasps, as if the heat flooding suddenly inside him is a complete surprise. His eyelashes flutter, fingers clenching and unclenching, still held obediently behind his head. The soft hair under his arms looks damp. His rigid erection jerks, stretched hole twitching deliciously around Crowley’s softening cock. His chest rises and falls, heaving, drastic. Crowley gives a shuddering sigh. It takes just one judicious touch and Cas is popping like a rocket, shooting all over his own belly and chest and Crowley’s hand with a dismayed little blissful cry, as if he’s not touched himself for – _ever_ , which he probably hasn’t.

Damn typical that Crowley’d be the one to end up hating himself over this ludicrous encounter. He holds his hand up, studying the pearly emission, and quashes the brief strong urge to taste it. To – _oh god_ \- make the angel taste it. Pressing his lips together, he summarily wipes his hand on the sheets and says, “Get out of my sight.”

It’s absolutely the perfect thing to say and he should give himself a pat on the back for it. He sees that, from the bow of Cas’s head that’s more than mere humiliation or contrition. His prisoner struggles gracelessly to dismount, legs shaking. Crawling backwards off the huge bed, the insides of his thighs are immediately slicked with escaping demon seed and he hangs his head, shuddering. He looks, finally, after all these months, broken. It’s a sight at once stimulating and horrifying and Crowley knows he should be pleased with himself, but he feels anything but. He’s a sadist, sure, but he’s not crass. It’s easy to corrupt by simply taking, but where’s the skill in that? Making the corruptee welcome it, want it, crave it: there’s the art. Certainly nothing to do with mercy. With caring. With lo- _no_. No, not that. That’s what he tells himself when he says, “Wait.”  
Castiel raises his head, just enough for Crowley to meet his baleful gaze. And it’s sharper now. More focused. More _him_ : even in this state of strange degradation there’s suddenly the thrill of something frightening there again, replacing the dull desperation of madness that had for so long beamed out of those baby blues; and Crowley’s heart skips a beat, not in fear but in excitement. This is the moment. This is the moment when, after these long, long months, he fights back. Crowley holds his breath, bracing for the tussle. But Castiel doesn’t move. Just as ordered, he waits. His gaze never wavers for an instant from Crowley’s face, his mouth set with a strange new determination, but his eyes unreadable. Crowley darts out his tongue to wet his upper lip. Leans his head to one side, thinking. He makes a small gesture with one hand. Beckoning. 

When Castiel crawls back up the bed, he’s no longer shuddering; he is lithe as a panther. Purposeful. This is obligation no longer – Crowley lets his hand fall to the bed, holding his arm out – it’s choice. He sets his head down against Crowley’s chest, lying in the position he’s lain so many times over the past months. This could not be more different. By choice. Crowley pushes his fingers through the angel’s thick hair and marvels. It’s like having a lion lay its head on his lap. Like… lovers. Lying still, just breathing. And Castiel’s fingertips stroke paths through the whorls of dark hair on his chest, skim the images tattooed across his shoulders. His voice is a gruff purr against Crowley’s skin. He sounds… wondering. “Is this punishment? Penance? Or is it-” The word hangs unspoken between them. _Redemption_. Redemption, for both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :) and remember I am always up for a chat about canon or fanon or anything, just drop a 'hello' in the comments (doesn't even have to be related to the fic!)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm terribly sorry for this story and realise I'm going to Hell for it (hehe). Will finish it asap and promise it'll earn it's rating for more than torture descriptions.


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